The "Family Guy" viral mishap: Blame Canada!

It all started on Sunday when someone posted a clip from "Family Guy" to YouTube -- an occurrence, I soon discovered, that happens about 100 times a day. This one was a 28-second clip (below) where a character drops the F bomb.  The poster leaves this note:

I couldnt believe it when i heard it the f word on family guy. Someones in trouble

Monday morning, Lew Irwin's "Studio Briefing" sent the alert to thousands of readers, who (since only a fraction of them actually watch or TiVo the Fox network) took it as gospel: Some said "f----ing" on the "Family Guy." Paul Harris and I even yakked about it for a couple of minutes on Monday.

But it's not true.  As alert TV Barn posters who did watch Fox that night noted, the scene was bleeped. In the U.S. of A., that is.

The first tipoff that something was screwy was the fact, as Paul and I noted, that "Family Guy" is not a live broadcast. In fact, like just about all cartoons not named "South Park," it's produced months in advance. The chance of getting anything controversial on the air without standards and practices not knowing would seem to be nil.

Then, another tipoff.  The guy who posted it to YouTube is, judging from his other videos, deep into DVD-ripping technology. Could it be the guy never saw the broadcast, but somehow got his hands on a DVD screener submitted to Fox with the curse word included?

Or was this just an elaborate stunt posed by Seth MacFarlane and his merry pranksters, whose contempt for the FCC is well known?  (Last season, an episode of "American Dad" was virtually calculated to push the edge of the envelope for so-called broadcast "decency." It was more violent than a Peckinpah film.)

UPDATE: We have our answer in the comments!